The bells are borrowed. So is the rehearsal space. The sound, however, is all their own — and they’re taking it on the road.

The Bells of Christ Church from Christ Church Anglican depart Sunday for a three-state tour — Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee — performing at various churches and a retirement center. Then, it’s back to Savannah to wrap up the season with a free hand bell concert at 3 p.m. June 17 at Bull Street Baptist Church.

“Teenagers love hand bells,” said Mark Williams. “It is completely a team activity — that’s why teenagers like it. They get to be independent and interdependent at the same time. It’s both athletic and artistic.”

As director of music at Christ Church Anglican, he directs the church’s various choirs, including the bell choir. Earlier in his career, he was even a member of a professional hand bell choir in Houston.

Christ Church Anglican’s bell choir is an unusual group. For one thing, not everyone in the choir is a member of the sponsoring church. Their ages range from middle school to college years. They come from schools scattered throughout the county, including a large cadre of home-schoolers. And by the time they age out of the group, they’ve logged a lot of miles with their bells as part of the group’s annual summer tour.

The group performs a selection about once a month at the church’s regular Sunday service throughout the school year. That works out to about eight numbers a year. No matter how hard you practice, it’s hard to keep your edge with a performance schedule that light.

Williams’ answer? Pack up the bells, recruit some “roadies” from the youth group to handle the equipment, load everyone and everything onto buses or vans, and spend a week traveling with a full-length hand bell concert. This year’s version is the sixth he has led.

“What touring has done is sharpen our skills,” he maintains.

What’s athletic about ringing hand bells? Pick up one from the deeper end of the scale and you’ll know the answer — these things are heavy, and they are cradled against the chest and then rung while being held up and out. The very biggest bells are suspended from a frame to take the strain off the ringers’ backs and arms. Choir members also rotate through the bells from number to number, meaning the youngest and tiniest girl and the burliest of the college guys each get a turn with both the daintier sizes and the big guns.

This story is about youth and music, not legal disputes and religious schisms. But it’s hard to explain the current status of the Bells of Christ Church from Christ Church Anglican without at least touching on those matters — as even the name attests.

Doctrinal disputes have displaced first one faction and then the other from the original Christ Church. Christ Church Anglican now meets at Independent Presbyterian Church while its leadership decides what to do about a permanent sanctuary of its own. When it moved to the shared worship quarters six months ago, the bell choir of 15 years duration was parted from its bells — and a full set of bells can cost as much as $30,000.

Yet another church stepped in to help.

About half a dozen churches in the Savannah area have bell choirs. Bull Street Baptist Church’s bell choir is currently inactive, and the church offered Williams’ group the use of those bells. What’s more, Bull Street Baptist lets the group rehearse there and will serve as the site of the final concert when the summer tour concludes June 17.

Williams explained that each year the tour is a mix of performances, visits to educational sites and recreation. One year, the group performed in New Orleans and joined Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. This year’s trip will include stops at the World of Coca-Cola, Chickamauga Battlefield, Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, Birmingham’s Civil Rights Institute and the McWane Science Center, also in Birmingham. A tubing trip on the Ocoee River, picnics and pool time at the various hotels round out the schedule.

The serious business of the tour includes rehearsals and performances at Roswell Presbyterian Church and Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, and Trinity United Methodist Church and Danberry Retirement Center in Birmingham. The group returns Saturday, June 16, and concludes its season the following day with the free afternoon concert at Bull Street Baptist Church.

The cycle starts up again next school year, with the first order of business being filling by audition the four vacancies that graduation will leave in the choir. Eighth grades and up are welcome to vie for the spots, regardless of church home, Williams said. He noted that home-schooling families often show a particular interest because the choir fills music and team voids they often face.

Williams invited any interested family to contact him at 912-344-7101.